by Calculated Risk on 5/28/2021 08:37:00 AM

The BEA released the Personal Income and Outlays report for April:

Personal income decreased $3.21 trillion (13.1 percent) in April according to estimates released today by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Disposable personal income (DPI) decreased $3.22 trillion (14.6 percent) and personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $80.3 billion (0.5 percent).

Real DPI decreased 15.1 percent in April and Real PCE decreased 0.1 percent; goods decreased 1.3 percent and services increased 0.6 percent. The PCE price index increased 0.6 percent. Excluding food and energy, the PCE price index increased 0.7 percent.
emphasis added

The April PCE price index increased 3.6 percent year-over-year and the April PCE price index, excluding food and energy, increased 3.1 percent year-over-year.

The following graph shows real Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) through April 2021 (2012 dollars). Note that the y-axis doesn't start at zero to better show the change.

Click on graph for larger image.

The dashed red lines are the quarterly levels for real PCE.

Personal income was above expectations,  and the increase in PCE was at expectations.